A Nantucket Christmas (4 page)

He could usually find a comfortable wicker chair on a back porch to sleep in for the night. He searched the center of the town for food, hitting the jackpot where the ferries and boats docked. There, the trash barrels were always full.

The trees grew bare. The temperature fell. The lights disappeared from summer homes. Hunger didn’t hurt him as much as loneliness. No one petted him, no one held him, no one even ever said hello. He trotted along the streets of town like a ghost dog, unrecognized, unapproached. After a while, he noticed that all the other dogs kept their owners on a leash, and Snix didn’t blame them. If he had someone who loved him, he’d want to be permanently connected, too.

During the days, as he hunted through the town for something, anything, to eat, he couldn’t help catching sight of what he was pretty sure was himself in the shop windows. He was scrawny, with ribs curving beneath tangled matted hair. It was embarrassing.

No wonder the girl had left him behind.

It encouraged him slightly when locals began to put up lights all over their houses and the town lined the streets with fragrant green trees covered in small glittering bulbs. Frigid air blew over the island, but more visitors kept arriving, gabbing away with their hands clutching hot cups of coffee, munching heavenly-scented sweet rolls, dropping the occasional crumb that Snix tried to get to after the people walked away, before the seagulls swooped in.

He was surviving. It was worse when the blowing rain or snow began. Back porches provided little shelter, so he huddled, shivering, inside bushes or beneath cars. In the daylight, what little there was of it, he ran through the streets, searching for food and a warmer spot.

He was so lonely.

“Know what, Mommy?” Kennedy grumbled. “I hate this season.”

“I never liked it, either,” Katya sympathized.

“It’s such a
bother
.” Kennedy was reclining on her mother’s living room sofa, visiting for the afternoon. Alonzo had taken Maddox down to the condo’s gym to play, which almost made Kennedy like the man, even if her mother had run off with him. Kennedy could still hope with all her heart that her mother would come to her senses and return to her father.

“All the awful parties,” Katya agreed. “It’s so hard not to gain weight.”

Kennedy cast a skeptical eye at her mother, who hadn’t gained an ounce after her twenty-fifth birthday.

Katya had learned to slenderize her body and her life before it became all the rage. She always chose modern furniture with sleek, clean lines. She hated clutter. She disdained “collectibles.” Her clothing, too, was classic. No ruffles, no lace, no faux anything. White shirts and khakis in the summer, white cashmere turtleneck sweaters and khakis in the winter. Black dresses for evening wear. Real pearls. Costume jewelry—ugh. Only real, large—but not vulgar—diamond solitaires for her ears. Her blond hair was always cut to fall just to her chin, sweeping from a side part.

“How do you stay so skinny?” Kennedy asked.

“Exercise and willpower,” Katya told her. “Your weight has to be your first priority in life. It’s extremely hard work. I’ll admit I’ve suffered at times.”

“But it’s worth it, right, Mom? I mean, just look at you.”

Katya preened. “Thank you, darling.”

“I’ll lose weight after I have the baby.”

“Of course you will.”

Kennedy made a face. “But we’ve got to go to Dad’s next Sunday for the whole
week
!”

“It will be fine,” Katya assured her daughter. “Come on. This way, Nicole has to do all the fussing about Christmas. She’ll do all the cooking and cleaning. You won’t have to do a thing. Sebastian will take care of Maddox. He and James can go off and do manly things. You’ll be able to rest.”

“I hope so, because you know Nicole is going to fill Maddox with candy and icing. He’ll be a hyperactive monkey boy.”

“What are you getting Nicole for Christmas?” Katya sipped from her mug of unsweetened green tea and settled more comfortably into her chrome and leather chair.

Kennedy shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve only met her once. I don’t know what that woman likes.”

“Get her some chocolates.” Katya leered wickedly over the top of her mug.

Kennedy giggled. “You are bad.” Nicole wasn’t fat, exactly, but she didn’t have Katya’s lean, lithe lines.

“Why?” Katya widened her eyes innocently. “All women like chocolates.”

Kennedy snorted. “Nicole obviously does.”

“Don’t be mean, Kennedy. My sources tell me Nicole is a very nice woman, and your father seems satisfied enough with her.”

“Oh, Mommy!” Kennedy struggled to sit up. “Why’d you have to leave Daddy?”

“Darling, we’ve been over this before. Your father and I were boring together. You are grown and married. It was right for me to have some ME in my life.”

Kennedy flopped back against the pillows. “By ME, you mean Alonzo. Sex.”

Katya rolled her eyes and directed the subject back to the holidays. “So. You can order chocolates for Nicole online. Go Godiva, that’s always easy and best. Send her the biggest box. They’ll gift wrap it.
Done
. For your father, go online and order a few of the newest biographies. You know all the man does is read.” Katya yawned. “SO boring.”

“Mommy.” Kennedy didn’t like her parents criticizing each other.

“What did you get James?”

“Nothing yet.” Kennedy poked her enormous belly. “Maybe I’ll order him a life-size blow-up doll he can have sex with.”

Katya ignored this. “Does he need a new golf bag? Tennis whites?”

“For Christmas? In New England? We can’t go anywhere, may I remind you, because this baby boy is coming in January. So, no Florida, no Aruba, just snow.”

“Now let’s be positive. How about cross-country skis for James and for Maddox? They can go out together.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ve ordered a sled from L.L. Bean for Maddox.” Kennedy gazed around the living room. No tree, no pines on the fireplace mantel, no presents. “What are you doing for Christmas?”

“I told you, Kennedy. Where is your mind these days? Alonzo and I are going to a cleansing spa in Switzerland for ten days. No fats, no alcohol, no sugar. Lots of exercise and fresh air. Indoor tennis, of course.”

“You told me you were going to a spa, but you didn’t say Switzerland!” Kennedy sat up, alarmed. “Mommy, what about the baby?”

“Kennedy, he’s not due until the middle of January. I’ll be back on December thirtieth. Plenty of time.”

“You’ve got to be!” Kennedy ran her hands over her belly. “I need you there, and Daddy and James.”

“We’ll do our best.”

“I know you will. Still—”

“Ssh. It’s going to be fine.” Katya glanced at her watch. “I’ve got my yoga class in about thirty minutes …”

“I know. I should get Maddox home for his dinner, anyway.” Kennedy pushed her arms back, trying to extract herself from the sofa.

Katya watched her daughter with an assessing eye. “I promised to give you money for a nanny.”

“I know, Mommy, and I’m grateful. But I want to bond with the new baby, even if he is a boy.”

“It’s a shame about that. Girls’ clothes are so much cuter. But never mind, Kennedy, it will be fun for Maddox to have a brother to play with.”

Kennedy had achieved a standing position. “I wish James would take a week’s vacation and spend it with me and the new baby, and especially with Maddox. It would be wonderful for Maddox to have his father give him special attention when we have a new baby.”

“James has an important job with his brokerage firm, Kennedy. You’re being far too idealistic with this bonding mumbo-jumbo. Get a nanny, let her care for the baby, and
you
spend time with Maddox. I had a nanny for you, and you turned out all right.”

Kennedy lumbered across the room and into the hall. She pressed the intercom and told Alonzo that he should bring Maddox up.

“Maddox wants a puppy,” she said over her shoulder to her mother. “I told him no. I can’t deal with a puppy and a new baby. Plus, I’m allergic to animals.”

“Are you, darling? I never knew that.”

Kennedy stared at her mother. “I thought that was why we never had a pet.”

“Oh? I must have forgotten.” Katya opened the closet door and took out Maddox’s little black dress coat and wool cap. She handed them to Kennedy. “I’m sure you’re right.”

It was the middle of December. Nicole wore a blue roll-neck cotton pullover with a large white snowflake in the center. She’d opened her holiday jewelry box and selected snowflake earrings to match. They’d cost less than five dollars and were iridescent—she could still remember how pleased she was to discover them at a local pharmacy. She looked pretty cute, even if she did say so herself. Kennedy, of course, would consider her sweater sappy. But Kennedy wasn’t here yet.

And today they were going to buy the tree!

They bundled up in puffy down coats and leather gloves and drove out of town to Moors End Farm on Pol-pis Road.

Snow wasn’t falling, but the wind blew fiercely, and overhead the sky hung low and white, as if ready to drop its load of flakes at any moment. Sebastian squeezed the car between two others. He and Nicole slammed their car doors and leaned into the wind, battling toward the trees propped against wooden supports.

Nicole headed toward the tallest trees. After a moment, she noticed Sebastian was no longer beside her. He’d stalked over to the area with the midget trees.

“Sebastian!” she called. “Over here!”

Sebastian waved to her, indicating that she should come over to where he stood.

“No!” Nicole called. “Tall!” She raised her arms high and wide. “BIG!”

Sebastian hurried over to her, looking worried. “Nicole, we don’t have the decorations or the lights for such a large tree.”

Nicole wriggled cheekily. “
I
do. I brought a couple of boxes when I moved here. Plus, we can buy more lights in a flash!”

Sebastian chuckled at her weak joke. “I’m afraid I’m not much help with all this tree business.”

“You’ll be all the help I need when you carry it into the house,” Nicole assured him.

A burly sales clerk in a red-checked flannel jacket and a fuzzy green hat appeared.

“What about this one?” he suggested, pulling out an eight-foot-tall tree and shaking it so its branches fell away a bit from their tightly twined position.

“Look, Seb, it’s
flawless.
” Nicole clapped her hands in delight. She’d never seen such a sublime evergreen. “It’s shaped like an A. Each side is bushy, so we won’t have to tuck one bad side in a corner to hide it.”

Sebastian glanced fondly at his wife, who was practically levitating in her pleasure. “Okay,” he surrendered. “This tree.”

At the small shed where they paid, Nicole bought a wreath for the front door, too. A
tasteful
wreath with a large red bow and nothing else, no small decorations, no candy canes, no pine cones dusted with faux snow, which she would have preferred. This was her private concession to Sebastian’s decorous (lackluster) tastes. While he and Katya had never had a Christmas tree in the house, Nicole couldn’t imagine Christmas without one.

With the lumberjack’s help, Sebastian easily hefted the tree to the top of his SUV and fastened it with rope and bungee cords.

Getting it into the house was a different matter entirely. The tree was heavy. Sebastian removed the cords and wrestled it to the ground, but once he’d gotten his hands on the trunk, he had trouble lifting it and for a moment stumbled around the car as if dancing with a clumsy drunk in a green fir coat.

Nicole stifled a giggle. “Let me take the top to guide it in.” She stuck her hands in between the branches, grabbed the slender trunk, and together they carried it into the living room. They dropped it on the floor, then wrestled it into the stand Nicole had placed in readiness.

Sebastian stood back, staring at the tree. “It’s awfully big.”

“I know,” Nicole agreed smugly. She cocked her head, studying her husband. “Tell you what. If you’ll help me put the lights on, I’ll do the rest of the decorating.”

His posture relaxed. “That’s a deal. I was hoping to meet the guys for lunch at Downyflake.”

After they strung the lights on the evergreen, Sebastian walked into town to meet his friends. Nicole brought out her beloved old ornaments, set them on the floor, and evaluated them. She was in a new stage of her life, this was the biggest tree she’d ever had, and she wanted it to be the most glorious. She hurried into her car and drove to Marine Home Center.

In the housewares section of the shop, “White Christmas” played softly over the sound system. Christmas baubles filled the shelves, each more adorable than the other. Mothers with children knelt down to discuss which miniature crèche scene to purchase for their houses. Honestly, the ornaments became cleverer every year, Nicole thought, in a frenzy of confusion over how to limit herself to just a few choices. Penguins on ice skates, red-nosed reindeer, trains with wheels like red and white peppermint candy, airplanes with Snoopy waving and his red scarf flying backward, snowflakes, grinning camels, tiny dolls in white velvet coats with red berries in their hair … Oh, Nicole
loved
this season!

She bought lots of decorations, and if she thought she might be going just a wee bit overboard, she remembered Maddox. What fun it would be to have a child in the house for Christmas!

Back home, she listened to a holiday CD while she hung the ornaments. As she worked, she discovered she needed to rearrange the furniture, to push the sofas and chairs away from the tall, bushy tree. Standing back, she wondered if it wasn’t just a bit overwhelming. Had she made a mistake? Misjudged? Was the tree too big? Was she just a hopeless cornball with no sense of restraint and elegance?

She resisted hanging one last candy cane, plugged in the small multi-colored lights, and collapsed on the sofa to review her handiwork. It was quite an amazing sight, she thought, bright, joyful, playful … absentmindedly she chewed on the end of the candy cane. Oh! She was hungry! She’d worked right through lunch. No wonder she had misgivings about the tree. Her blood sugar was low.